Hear Me Out: Teaching Civics Can’t Save Democracy

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… I’m just a bill.

A lot of Americans will agree, even across party lines, that our democracy feels broken. A commonly proposed solution is beefing up, or formalizing, the way we teach young people civics. 

Entities from the Center for American Progress to Vivek Ramaswamy have suggested that it’s time that we get students to know more about their government — in the hopes that knowing more leads to caring more, and engaging more. But by prioritizing civics, what else could students be missing? 

Reason Magazine’s Christian Barnard is our guest, here to argue that civics won’t save us.

If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

Podcast production by Maura Currie

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